Potty Training, Birthdays and Grief

Potty-training shrinks the world. And since my daughter wants to quit the attempts whenever she has an accident, I try to bend the world to prevent them. Accidents upset her in a heart-breaking make her hug her diapers kind of way. She pleads, "But I love my diapers. They don't have accidents," and carresses them.

I try to convince her everyone has accidents. I know by the end of the week I'm going to be peeing on the floor to prove it. She's simply not conviced. "Now that I'm theree, I probably won't have accidents," she announces before bed since her pediatrician told her, "You're ready for potty training. You're three." And I reminded the doctor to use her, I'm an authority figure voice to add, "But because you're learning something new, there will be accidents." I don't think my daughter heard that part.

"I miss my diapers. I love my diapers. But I love my underwear. You and Daddy wear underwear." And then we go through the list of her friends trained, not trainied and in process.

"I miss my old number," she says, meaning 2, her old age. "I still love my old number. Number two."

"You can love two and three," I say the way I tried to convince her I could like her friends and she could like Mommy's friends. But she wanted the adults to like the adults and would say, "But I love them all by myself."

Inside I'm thinking the question that in one form or another passes through my mind regularly, Is this adoption-related? grief-related? related to being abandoned? in an orphanage?

She's talking about the number 2 and the number 3 and part of me is thinking, "Is she going to believe she can love us and think about her bio parents?" She's feeling conflicted loyalty about the numbers 2 and 3. "I like the number 3," she says, "I don't want it to change." How do I explain she'll be 3 for a good long while, and then someday 4, but not too soon. I mean, it's been a long day. We've had potty training, a limit on t.v. and now we are grieving the passage of time."

"Everyone's number changes on their birthday," I say, "That's part of the reason we have a party." Really, I haven't thought about birthdays so much in years. And we're on to talking balloons for a while and I'm wondering if I'm explaining too much and if maybe we really shouldn't go back to watching MORE t.v. just to simplify life for a while...